


Toys For Hogswatch

by Aragonitemoved



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Book: Hogfather, Gen, Humor, Other, River Ankh - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aragonitemoved/pseuds/Aragonitemoved
Summary: A gentle thread that spun itself from the fact that in HOGFATHER, we learned there were Captain Carrot toys for happy children.There were almost Sam Vimes toys.Thankfully, Sam Vimes did something about that.





	Toys For Hogswatch

Toys For Hogswatch  
by Aragonitemoved

*

Hogswatch in Ankh-Morpork was almost inundated with Sam Vimes toys instead of Captain Carrots. That mess with the dragon and all that hoopla with Weatherwax (and we don’t mean the Archchancellor Weatherwax, thank you) positively begged for merchandise. It started when the newest of Junior Assistants to an Apprentice Toymaker came home to find his children dressing up wooden clothespins and having small armies of the City Watch parade over the kitchen table and defeat the awful evil represented by his husband’s Mystery Meat Soup. His oldest had gone so far as to pencil a cigar poking out of the crayoned mouth of the scowling clothespin.

  
This close to Hogswatch, obviously, something needed to be done.

Veritable Upshot then went forth and, on his five-minute luncheon breaks, begged for workshop scraps the Toymaker Guild (called Sodality) was going to throw into the River Ankh, anyway.

(Every respectable Guild made sure to dump a certain level of carbon-based garbage into the river every week; it gave the gaseous-producing micro-imps something to eat and distracted them from too much gastrointestinal mischief. This custom was started by the Assassin’s Guild, who felt the inconvenience of a river that liked to combust at the most inopportune moments, such as the very night when part of their contract demanded a specific type of pest removal).

The toys were a Hogswatch success, with the children so delighted with their own Watch and opponents that they forgot to shake down the Hogswatch Wreath for the hidden hogs-bladder stuffed with candied minnows. Veritable Upshot sat back weary with the delights of a Job Well Done and accepted a glass of steaming Cheese Wine brewed and bottled by his own beloved, Oregano Salsify. Together the couple toasted each other for a memorable holiday… so memorable, in fact, that the children ignored the lack of a decent oatmeal on the table and were dispersing to the winds with their wooden watchmen.

Unbeknownst to the parents, their children would be soon renting out limited amounts of time for their peers to play with the Wooden Watch, and that payment was inevitably in the form of Holiday Excess. Late that night, Salsify did wonder about the slightly-gnawed ham basket left on the doorstep, but homemakers for six orphans and the newest Junior Assistant to a First Level Apprentice Toymaker learn to pinch pennies until they’re thinner than cabbage stamps.

It’s Sam Vimes who discovers the toys, because Young Sam comes back with his mother gabbling about how his father has his own ‘statue’ now in the square. Vimes needs a little time to figure it out, but luckily for Sam and Sybil, the lad’s hand gestures approach fluent bilingualism, and legally, there is no minimal height requirement for an Ankh-Morpork statue.

He dons his oilskin against the wintry damp and takes a little stroll down to that little spot the City Watch pretends to not know about 23 hours a day. It’s Midday, that one hour in which the worst of weather shows itself without pity. In summer the heat bakes the dirt into the stones; in spring the rains rinse all the collected leaves, dead mice, bird’s-nests, and forgotten Assassin’s daggers off the roofs and into the gutters. Around Hogswatch, the snows pile up high and deep and soft, one hour a day, around the Square, and children are there to play.

Vimes is a bit nostalgic about those dirty little urchins playing at the Square. He used to be one, and snow is nicer than playing in watery gutters or trying to bake mud pies out of guttermuck in the summer (which is no longer possible for the newest generation, as the Trolls harvest guttermuck for some sort of expensive cosmetics purposes – their river may always be a flowing fatality, but the gutters have never been cleaner).

The first thing Vimes sees by the Old Sundial is a well-assembled army of child-sized Snow Yeti, beasts all Trolls invoke to make their children go to bed at proper hours. The dirty white lumps are lurching across the open face of the Old Sundial that rules the Square. Defeating them is a small wooden collection of his very own Watch.  
Sam watches from behind a cloud of fresh cigar as the villains are routed by not brute force, but sensibility. The tiny wooden Sam is marched up to warn the yeti one last time that they should obey the law, and when the yeti refuse, littler wooden Cheery Longbottom and not-littler Captain Carrot stride forth and the children are yelling proper legal imprecations because as everyone knows, it is highly illegal for beings made of snow to approach a municipal drinking water source before going to the privy.  
Sam Vimes is both charmed and terrified at the enthusiasm of these tots, and he can already see them grown into a Watch cloak. Especially that girl, who looks like she’s got a few different species and a lot of energetic output to channel in her brain.

But it is the youngest child, a tiny little thing with smoked glasses over his eyes that pulls at Vimes’ heart and copper strings at the same time. None of the kiddies have seen enough in the way of regular meals, and he remembers a little girl on his old street, blind, and her mum couldn’t afford real medical smoked glasses so they made their own by passing the lenses over a sputtering wick. Later the mum went into what can only be politely called a life of crime to pay for treatment; people like her are why Vimes flexes his muscles with the letter of the law every day.

This little boy is smiling like Young Sam does when he has a very precious thing in his fingers, and those fingers are running over the carved doll that is Cheery Longbottom. Of course, he thinks, Ironwood for Cheery.

It doesn’t surprise him that the blind child knows he’s coming; his boots crunch loudly in the snow and his knees pop as he lowers himself to a better level.  
“That’s a nice toy you have,” he says.

“Me Papa made it!” is the proud answer.

“Oh?”

“Yes! He’s gunna be a Toymaker!”

Vimes asks permission for and gets, the chance to examine the wooden Cheery. Toymakers-in-training aren’t really ‘allowed’ to make toys on their own and he’s been called to too many complaints from the Guild, which they call a Sodality, because Guilds pay taxes. So often it means jealous old bastards against rising new talent. This has the look of talent. There’s love in these little nicks; love for the craft, the child, and for Cheery.

He’s halfway through a gentle interrogation of the toys when someone who absolutely must be a parent comes puffing up, staggering through the uneven snowdrifts. He’s got patches on his patches but everything’s clean, and the hair sticking up in all directions is hand-cut.

“Oh, dear!”

“At ease, Salsify.” Sam pulls out one of his spare cigars. “I was just admiring the workmanship here.” He grins. “Takes a bit of skill to make decent tools out of scroungings, doesn’t it? Because as I recall, the Guild keeps everyone’s tools under lock and key during work-hours.”

Salsify flushes, and the former lockpick lifts his chin. “A bit of a challenge,” he answers stoutly. “Did you know the Dwarfs just toss out their stoneware mugs when they get broken? All those wonderful high-temperature ceramics turned into flowerpots, or…or crushed into cobbles for their driveways!” He shudders. “Nothing like a ceramic tipped knife for cutting the vegetables, let me tell you. And never need sharpening!”

“I never thought about it, but that’s good to know.”

“I’m still clean, Sam,” Salsify whispers under the shouts of the children. “I’m still at the Vineyard. Verry and these children are everything to me. I’m not going to ruin it.”

“I know, Orrie,” Sam returns. “I didn’t expect to see you at all. Young Sam saw the toys and came back chirping.” He blows a smoke ring. “Glad to know Veritable finally got in with the Guild… Sodality.”

Oregano Salsify’s response is to snort sadly and look away. The children may look lean, but they’re well-fed next to the reformed criminal that lived on the next step over from Cockbill Street. “They’re hard to work for,” he mutters. “Everything he does, they take the credit. I told him he would be better off with the Miniaturist’s Guild, but…well…a Toymaker gets more in sales when they finally become a master craftsman.”

“Which only takes ten or fifteen years, eh?” Sam wonders sarcastically. “All you have to do is survive that long.” The two share a look that understands when one’s partner in life and love might be doing things the hard way because they think it is better for everyone. “How’s the Vinyard?”

“Slow. I can’t go back for the pruning until we have another two weeks of cold weather.”

“How are you making rent?”

Oregano Salsify has struck down people who asked that same question, but this is Sam Vimes, who wants to know because he’s an honest man and honestly worried about people.  “Vinyard’s Guild. Every month we work we get a bit squirreled away for the months when we don’t work.”

“Smart.” Sam leans over to light Salsify’s cigar with his own tip, all the better to whisper: “Tell Verry I have some work for him.”

“He’s not allowed to make toys on his own,” Orrie whispers, frightened.

“He won’t be making toys.” Sam grins. It’s the sort of grin his wife’s swamp dragons cluster to, because they know it means fun things. Like chasing assassins.

                                         *

Lord Vetinari is settling down to his breakfast the following morning when he gets a not-unexpected message from the City Watch. By ‘not-unexpected’ it means that it has been almost a week since Sam Vimes did something to stir things up in the city, and if anything, he’s overdue.

He’s almost finished reading it through when John Polliwog-Offal, lawyer for the Toymakers’ Sodality comes storming in. Lord Vetinari is an excellent reader of emotions and knows, when all five of the man’s chins are quivering with indignation, he’s going to approve of whatever caused it.

*

Lady Sybil is quite accustomed to her husband coming home with an acquaintance for dinner. This one is a shy, shabby man with six various-sized tattered children, all of which are terrified of Lady Ramkin, but it isn’t long before the baby dragons and Young Sam puts him at ease. She loads them up with plenty of bacon and potatoes, and a glass of Cheese Wine from the country—his own work! Oregano learns from the table-talk that she paid far too much: the real vines hadn’t been ready to bud in the Century of the Cobra! Sybil promises to do something about that particular salesman.

Young Sam charms him into teaching the children how to make swamp dragons out of his mother’s linen napkins and a twist of shoestring. The boy goes to bed early hugging his new contrivance to his chest and the adults stay up a bit later to talk—well, mostly to complain about the price of food in winter. Oregano’s children are food-drunk, napping on the floor with their white-linen dragons. After drawing him out a little bit on the finer details of his life and work, Sybil makes certain Sam won’t let them leave until all are properly packed off in the snowstorm in their private carriage with one—make that two—heavy baskets of ‘leftovers from the kitchen’.  
They watch his pale white hand, waving frantically good-bye from the open window of the carriage until the snowswirls swallow them all up.

“Sam,” Lady Sybil asks sweetly, “what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that it’s a bloody crime that the Toymakers’ Sodality is the only Guild in the city that doesn’t have to pay taxes.”

“Oh? But they claim they shouldn’t because their sole purpose is to create joy and add to the quality of life in Ankh-Morpork.”

“That was their excuse.”

“And they’re a Sodality, which doesn’t exist in the city legal code dictionary.”

“That was their lawyer’s excuse.”

“Lord Vetinari can’t out-maneuver everyone, Sam. I’m sure he’s already plotting to get Ankh-Morpork’s rightful dues from them even as we speak.”

“Oh, I have no doubt you’re right about that, dear,” Sam says blandly. And he smiles. In the barn, the dragons purr.

*

The children are delighted. There’s no warning: they get their Papa Verry home every evening in time for supper, and something good must have been added to this fortune because there’s suddenly a lot to eat. Papa Orrie’s kitchen smells like spices and seasonings, and the grease-cup holding the leavings from meals is brimming full, enough to fuel the little fat-lamps at the table at dark. Their flat is warm. Staying indoors with lessons is a lot more enjoyable than going outside and running for warmth now. They are full and content and conclude Hogswatch Night was extended to an extra-long holiday.

 

*

Spring arrives, and with it, several things happen all at once:

1: The snows peter off. This is a relief to deliverymen and citizens everywhere—too bad about the trolls, but they consider this unexpected cool weather a bit of a special treat. “And not long enough to bring in our relatives, either,” Detritus grins. Trolls have no illusions about peacekeeping in hot weather with 3,500+ extended relatives. If they’re suddenly less intelligent with the warm weather, at least the vampires have perked up. Warm weather means more lively haemo-goblins. Sam kicks back and relaxes a bit because his Watch is adjusting to the seasons as always, and with the windows open he can chuckle at the sounds of outrage coming from Igor, eternally plagued by well-meaning relatives who keep giving him gift subscriptions to Unclaimed Corpse of the Month clubs, or lisp-improvement lessons.

2: The Watch has its own Siege Table. It’s as good as Lord Vetinari’s, a model map of the city and a gooey stripe of some mysterious substance caged from Moist von Lipwig’s rejected stamp glue to resemble the Ankh. Every member the City Watch has their own carved representation, except for that dratted Imp, who is weirdly shy and wants only his camera-box carved instead. Everyone universally dubs Angua’s forms, both human and werewolf, to be amazing but there’s a moment of silent awe for Veritable’s skill in capturing the unique…nuances…of Nobby and Colon. There are also carved Guildsmasters, Wizards, and a few of the more restless political players.

3: Lord Vetinari has his own carvings too. He got his first, which was carved last and therefore a bit more polished and intimidating. He puts his war table in his office for everyone to see when they come in. Especially for those who are the average height of the average Toymaker’s Master (pity about those stooped over shoulders and curved spines, they really should modify their work-tables).

3.1: There are also a few ‘test carvings’, as Veritable described them, and when Commander Vimes isn’t looking, he’ll come in to find a little Weatherwax (not the Archchancellor) facing a carved-cringing storekeeper, or the Cheery Longbottom standing on a wooden Detritus’ head to pull a tiny wooden cat out of a tree.

*

“It would seem, Commander Vimes, that you are in an ineluctable position with the Toymakers.”

“Oh?”

“Oh. Yes.”

Vimes waits for further elaboration, as usual. As usual, Vetinari humors him.

“It claims that you have taken one of their members and put him to work on…non-Sodality business? Let me remind you that it is quite against Sodality Law to have one of their members make toys without pre-approval of the Sodality.”

“This is police business, not toymaking. And the last I checked, I have the right to pull anyone I want out of anyone’s Guild if I so choose, for reasons of my choice, and the Guild has to pay a day’s wage to said member to compensate for each day they are under conscript.” And he grins again. “I’ll be sure to have Captain Carrot come around with all the paperwork.”

“Their lawyer may have some quarrel with that, Commander. For starters, you are claiming the Sodality is a Guild.”

“Oh, my mistake. The laws are still in effect, though.”

“How so?”

“The Conscript Laws apply to all citizens of Ankh-Morpork, and whoever is conscripted, their employer, or representative of the entity represented by the lawful labors, efforts, craftsman and volunteerism must pay said conscript a day’s wage as designated by the city’s Treasurer to be adequate for holding body and soul together.”

Why is it, the Patrician wonders, simply impossible to pass a fortnight without the unspoken presence of Moist Von Lipwig? It would be like being haunted except the man is still quite alive. He glances up but Drumknott is already sliding in with a file comprised of City Law, summarized, itemized, and stamped.

“I confess to surprise, Drumknott. I am not aware that this vote was made – granted back in the Cobra’s Century – with such universal approval on part of the officials.”

“I daresay, sir,” ventures the worthy Drumknott, “it is because at the time it was still quite legal to pay someone to serve the city in one’s stead. Paying a willing fellow a day’s wage for every day they must face a crossbow or spear in the spirit of Civic Duty is really quite the bargain when you think of it.”

“An excellent point, Drumknott. However –” Lord Vetinari’s brows float up upon his stern Patrician’s Brow “– if we fail that point in court, there is the matter that a lowlyNew Assistant to a Junior Apprentice in the Toymakers’ Sodality is paid nothing at all until they reach the rank of Full Apprentice.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really.”

“That hardly seems fair.”

“Oddly enough, the Lawyer is saying the same thing. Why pay a day’s wage for a conscript if they never pay him in the first place?”

Commander Vimes scratches his head thoughtfully. “That’s a decent point,” he muses slowly, “but, as I recall from the First Code of the Watch, the Watch is under no obligation to pay a conscript if the project is a matter of security for Ankh-Morpork. And creating interactive models of the city, to be used in times of tactical and strategic intelligence, falls under security. That still puts the responsibility of compensating him for his missing time and obligations upon his superiors, or whoever gives him orders.”

Lord Vetinari never has to fake his disapproving look when it turns out Sam Vimes is actually reading up on the laws of Ankh-Morpork.

“So you say, but it would appear from the financial pages that have reached my desk, the Watch was paying Mr. Upshot wages on top of the wages the Sodality was compelled to pay.”

“I beg your pardon, sir? We were feeding him. Can’t have a hungry man on our rolls. It looks bad and makes for shoddy work.”  
Vetinari lowers his pen, because he absolutely can’t wait to hear this explanation. “Are you saying a Junior Assistant to an Apprentice Toymaker needs a meal chit larger than all of your Trolls during the month-long Limestone shortage?”

“Why, no, sir! But he’s got a family to feed, you know, and he was feeding them first before he was feeding himself. We had to strike a balance somewhere.”

“And the other expenses?”

“Perfectly legitimate, sir.”

Vetinari picks up an offending sheet of paper. “You bought him a half-gallon of Children’s Croup Syrup.”

“It is Croup Season. He has a sensitive digestion, I heard. Can only take children’s potions most of the time.”

“And the receipt for twelve pairs of socks?”

“He does a lot of walking to get here, sir.”

“Children’s socks?”

“He has small feet, I heard.”

“You heard? You mean you don’t know?”

“I haven’t seen his feet, sir. They’re always underneath the hem of his Guild robe.”

All right. This is definitely one of his more interesting interviews with Commander Vimes. “And if I approach the…dispensers of these goods, such as, say… (glances down) Weatherwax, he would truthfully assure me the croup potions are for your conscript?”

“What? No, sir!” Commander Vimes is appalled at the very idea. “That’s Mistress Weatherwax, your Lordship! Not the Archchancellor Weatherwax!”

“Ah, my mistake. I wondered how he had suddenly re-appeared without explanation…” Vetinari rested the paper on top of the others. “Commander Vimes, from Hogswatch until a week before the approach of Creator’s Birthday, you have approved the expenses of Conscript Veritable Upshot: food, socks, Children’s Potions, the services of a dentist no less than seven times, a cord of slightly-used firewood, a tinned sheep’s head (extra eyeballs), four all-expense paid trips to the village of Bad Ass in Lancre, trips to the Watch and back home (presumably when they didn’t feel like walking in their new socks?), a nanny goat named ‘I-am-a-Goat’, a gross of pencils, primary schoolbooks, and a standing credit account to collect broken crockery from the Dwarfs at the Rocanahadplyce Quarry and Tavern.”

Sam Vimes tilts his head. “What about all that, sir?”

Vetinari’s composure becomes exponential. Anyone else would be looking for the trapdoor to the dungeon by now—praying for it. “All of this. All of it. What would you do with a tinned sheep’s head anyway?”

“He was supposed to get one, and he was working for us and couldn’t get to market on time.”

“Extra eyeballs?”

“The most nutritious part, I’m told, sir. If you return the tin you get a refund, so it’s really the same price as regular.”

“Slightly used firewood?”

“It was in a fire.”  
Lord Vetinari closes his eyes for a moment. “Why would someone name a goat I-am-a-Goat?”

“You’d have to ask Mistress Weatherwax. She said that was its name.”

“Mistress Weatherwax. Not Archchancellor Weatherwax.”

“Never is, sir.”

“No. No, it never is.”

“You could ask her, sir. She’s not against questions from my experience.”

“But she is against the questions I tend to have,” Vetinari reminded him. “Is she behind the trips to Lancre?”

“I believe so. Something about treating poor eyesight.”

“Pencils? Schoolbooks?”

“We were taking away his time to finish schooling.”

“A grown man taking primary schooling?”

“He grew up in the Shades, sir. These things come late.”

“Broken crockery, Commander?”

“Yes, sir. He was keen to get his hands on some.”

“And you didn’t ask why?”

“No, sir, and actually, it was a loan. He said he’d pay us back.”

“…Of course he did.”

Silence ticks on and on as the two opponents wait for the other man to speak. In the background lurked Drumknott, who wanted to know which man would crack, because he really did want to know the story behind a market for broken Dwarf crockery.

“What, Commander, do you predict will happen when the lowliest of the lowliest members of the Sodality returns to his masters considerably richer than everyone else, with the exception of said Masters?”

“I can’t rightfully say, sir. Mightn’t they be happy for their poorest member?”

“They’re claiming you are willfully trying to bankrupt them, Commander, by luring their members to the Watch.”  
Sam Vimes thinks that one over. “Coppers aren’t paid that much,” he points out. “But they have food on the table and they pay their taxes all the same.”

Vetinari steeples his fingers together. “A point, admittedly. Do you have anything you wish to pass on to them? I shall be glad to give them your words on the matter.”

“Oh, that would be fine, sir.” Sam pulls out his cigar, unlit, and clamped it in his teeth. “You can tell them that the Watch considers all members of the Sodality their first choice for Conscription, seeing as how they are the only Sodality that doesn’t pay taxes.”

“They are in fact the only sodality in Ankh-Morpork, Commander Vimes.”

“All the more important to set a good precedent, sir.”

“Are you, the father of a young child, declaring war on the toymakers, Commander?”

“Not at all.” Sam smiles. “But, see, the way I understand it…Toymakers create joy and add to the quality of life here, but they can’t enjoy the benefits of paying taxes. Most of them have to apply for charity assistance at least twice a year, and they’re last for medicines and road-cleanup, no emergency food boxes for the holidays, because all these things are funded by taxes and we never have enough taxes to fund for everybody.

“Now, it isn’t so bad when you reach Master’s Level, and you get an annual income of $5,000 a year plus your own house and expenses met…it’s the lower members that I worry about, sir, and while we do know that toymaking is a very honorable profession that brings much joy and quality of life to Ankh-Morpork, we have a bit of a…surfeit of joy with the monies. It really is a shame that there isn’t a…redistribution of all this joy and quality of life so that it is more even for everyone else. If we had that distribution, it stands to reason the Toymakers wouldn’t have to work themselves to exhaustion to bring joy to Ankh-Morpork.”

Vetinari is so damn proud of Commander Vimes, it is all he can do to keep his disapproving calm on his face. “I shall be glad to summarize your observations. One last question before you go?”

“Sir?”

“Your requisitioned supplies were enough that you could have made more than two Siege Tables.” The Patrician rises and runs his fingers over the model city.

“Always better to make room for human error, sir.”

“Of course.”

*

It never takes Vetinari long once he has a chip in the power game. Before the week is out, the Toymakers announce a move forward into the future and pay taxes, secure in the knowledge that there are more ways than one in which one can generate joy and quality of life.

“Which they should have done long ago.” Lady Sybil sniffs over the teapot. “Now everyone there can afford to feed their little ones.”

“Yes, dear.” Sam happily crunches his bacon. She had the burn just right this morning.

“Oh, are those lovely children coming over for Creator’s Birthday?”

“We did invite ‘em. Both the parents said yes, so long as Little Agar’s new eyes settle. Igor was very particular..”

“Splendid. I’ll make certain everyone has a little gift—something not so very practical for once; something pleasing for the self-esteem, like a nice schoolbag with lots of pockets, or diaries for writing.”

Sam is puzzled. “Isn’t something for the self-esteem practical? Well, I wouldn’t know.”

“No, dear. And we really ought to have something for our guests, seeing as how Young Sam will be getting the most outrageously extravagant gift of all.”

“Now that is practical, and I’m not really giving it to him, I’m just letting him play with it.”

“You’re giving a small child the use of a Siege Table?”

“Well,” Sam grumps, “might as well be prepared.”

 

And therefore, the Toymakers accidentally managed to muddle up the matter of Commander Sam Vimes Toys for Hogswatch. They didn’t know it at the time but would soon enough.

But that little matter of ‘image royalties’ is a whole different story and involves a lot more Dwarfs.


End file.
